Fox host: FEMA is unnecessary because Walmart will ‘spontaneously’ save us all in a disaster

Fox Business host John Stossel on Sunday asserted that most government was unnecessary because companies like Walmart would spontaneously provide assistance to disaster victims “in many more ways” than the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could.

“Ever feel like government makes too many plans that come to naught?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson told Stossel during a segment on Fox & Friends. “It’s kind of a bold idea. You’re saying that not every human activity needs to be planned from above. Some things spontaneously work themselves out pretty well.”

According to Stossel, Americans would be better off with less government and more “spontaneous order,” a term coined by economist Friedrich Hayek which states that order will naturally emerge from chaos.

“If you hadn’t seen a skating rink, you would say, ‘No, you need skating police, people go in this direction,'” Stossel observed. “Think of how much of life is spontaneous… Jazz, there’s no direction. So much of life is spontaneous, but our instinct is to say, ‘Government, give us a plan.'”

The Fox Business host said that one example of government over-planning was natural disasters.

“After Katrina, Walmart and private charities helped people in many more ways than FEMA did,” Stossel opined. “Because FEMA is incompetent because government tends to be. But also Walmart everyday needs to know what people need, and they were ready. They had more weather forecasters than some of the local governments do.”

The Week’s Damon Linker argued last year that “spontaneous order” was the “silliest and most harmful of all” libertarian ideas.

Linker said that the United States had conducted two experiments in “spontaneous order” in recent years by overthrowing governments in Iraq and Libya.

“In both cases, spontaneity brought the opposite of order. It produced anarchy and civil war, mass death and human suffering,” he wrote. “Order doesn’t just happen, and it isn’t the product of individual freedom.”

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.